LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Reflecting God's Work
"Let your work appear in your servants" (Psalm 90:16).
This psalm is full of experience and wisdom. It is not merely a poetic inspiration; therefore, it lacks grandiloquent words. It is subtitled "Prayer of Moses, the man of God".
Who but he knew God as a refuge, ever faithful and merciful? Moses knew brokenness, he learned before the bush, on the mountain of God, and in all the dealings of the Lord with his life and with his people, that man is fragile, that he cannot be trusted, for he is full of errors and wickedness, he is ephemeral, and moreover, ignorant. What does man know of the power and fear of God? (v. 11). But it is different when God acts in man, when God satisfies him. Then he sings, rejoices and forgets his affliction.
"Let thy work appear in thy servants". This is the prayer, perhaps the deepest, the most anguished prayer of the Lord's servants. When all our work is troubled, when we begin to count our days, and it seems that we will not reach to do anything worthy or profitable, before we "fly" (v. 10). The psalm has a sad tone (it is often quoted at funerals); it resembles the cry of a dejected servant who has learned, through many blows, that the only thing of true value is His work in us.
"Let thy work appear in thy servants". God has been working within us for a long time, ever since we knew Him (even before). Paul, writing in anguish to his beloved in Galatia, expressed this very thing: "My little children, for whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (4:19). This is the work of God that has to appear in us. Our problem is that many times "our work" appears, our history, our favorite forms, ways or doctrines; then we separate ourselves, we exclude ourselves with other servants, we differentiate ourselves by the smallness of our work. But, Lord, when your work appears in your servants, we will no longer have anything to boast about, because then the light will be yours and the glory will be yours!
The work of the Lord in each of His servants agrees, where Christ is being formed, where His character is being shaped, there will unquestionably be agreement and communion, for light has communion with light, faith with faith, love with love, meekness with meekness. In short, "Christ in us the hope of glory". This is the work of God that must begin to appear more and more clearly in our time, and while "our" work wears out, and everything in which we have lost our way seeking our own glory deteriorates and even dies, the work of God must shine forth, unmistakable, powerful, stable, and eternal.